Exhaust gas recirculation, especially cooled EGR, can be added to internal combustion engine systems to reduce NOx emissions and reduce knock tendency. In such a system, an amount of exhaust gas is added to the air and/or fuel mixture within the air-intake manifold of the engine. The challenge is that there is a cost to deliver the cooled EGR (cEGR), especially for high efficiency engines which generally are most efficient when the exhaust manifold pressure is lower than the intake manifold pressure. The pressure difference creates a positive scavenging pressure difference across the engine which scavenges burn gas from the cylinder well and provides favorable pressure-volume pumping loop work. It is particularly challenging to deliver cEGR from its source at the exhaust manifold to the intake manifold without negatively impacting the residual gas scavenging and efficiency of the engine cycle via the pumping loop. The “classic” high pressure loop cEGR system plumbs the exhaust gas directly to the intake manifold, which requires either design or variable turbocharging to force the engine exhaust manifold pressure to be higher than the intake manifold, which in turn, unfavorably reduces scavenging of hot burned gases and engine P-V cycle and loses efficiency. It is particularly counterproductive since the purpose of the cEGR is to reduce the knock tendency to improve efficiency and power density. But, this classic method to drive EGR actually increases the knock tendency through residual gas retention and reduces efficiency thru negative pressure work on the engine—in a manner of diminishing returns, i.e., two steps forward to reduce knock with cEGR, but one step back due to how it is pumped, leading to a zero gain point where the cost of driving cEGR counteracts the benefits of delivering it.